For the year IAFD.com served 20.7 million unique viewers (Roughly the entire population of Sri Lanka) who enjoyed nearly a quarter of a billion pages. Those staggering numbers further cement the simple fact that people, LOTS of people, like porn and know where to go to find all the relevant information they need about the adult industry.

During 2011, IAFD.com compiled data on 9,384 titles. Of those, 4,366 were produced in 2011. A closer look at the stats from those 4300 films shows some interesting trends.

According to the data compiled on IAFD.com India Summer was the busiest female performer in the industry with 78 new titles. She narrowly beat out Asa Akira (75) and Kristina Rose (72). Those numbers are impressive, but as usual, the men were even busier. Rocco Reed took the top spot with 133 movies, coming in well head of Mick Blue (116) and Mr. Pete (110). Topping the list for new female performers was Ashlynn Leigh with 38 titles in her rookie year. Rylie Richman came in second with 33.

“There were some surprising names near the top of the lists,” says IAFD’s Jeff Vanzetti. “Certain names you expect to see. Asa Akira, Kristina Rose, Bobbi Starr, but to see that India Summer was the busiest of them all is pretty surprising. Really goes to show how much the MILF genre has grown in 2011.”

The IAFD also tracks directors and production companies. Coming out on top of the list of most prolific directors in 2011 were Carl & Mary Hubay of Hotclits.net. They released a whopping 55 movies covering a number of genres. Lethal Hardcore’s Chucky Sleaze (48) and Digital Playground’s Robby D (41) came in with the next highest totals.

Evil Angel led all distribution companies with 173 new movies in 2011. Pure Play Media was in second with 160 and then numbers dropped to 111 for AMVC. Devil’s Films with 93 releases was the top studio, narrowly beating out Bluebird Films by just one title. Even as most production companies have scaled back on DVD releases, these numbers show that some companies are still going strong.

“Some companies you expect to see at the top of a list like this,” adds Vanzetti. “Evil Angel distributes so many top tier producers that they’re virtually unstoppable. But then you see a company like Bluebird Films that has gone from new kid on the block to powerhouse in such a short time. It’s very interesting and makes me wonder who will rise up this year.”

As the calendar turns to 2012, IAFD begins another year of collecting adult industry data. New stars will rise. New companies will shoot up the charts. Surprises will occur. The numbers don’t lie. People still love porn and millions of them have found all that they need and more on IAFD.com.

For a complete list of the top performers and studios visit: http://blog.iafd.com/2011/12/31/the-year-in-data-2011/

The Popular Adult Review Site Commends Girlfriends Films’ Movies, Business Practices, Website, & Charity Work!

Girlfriends Films was declared the “Adult Studio of the Year” by XCritic.com.  The popular adult movie review site notes Girlfriends Films position at the forefront of the adult industry, while providing a thriving business model in the current economy.  Going beyond its stellar reviews of Girlfriends Films’ DVDs, the honor from XCritic.com recognizes the studio’s business practices, performers, membership website, and charity work.

To read the article on XCritic.com presenting the award to Girlfriends Films, visit http://www.xcritic.com/columns/column.php?columnID=2987.

XCritic.com Editor Chris Thorne states, “Girlfriends Films shows no matter what your size, you can make a big impact in this industry and plot a path for others to follow.  More than the little engine that could, Girlfriends Films has been on the forefront of a major change in the adult industry and a model for an adult studio that not only has survived during the Great Recession, it’s thrived.  2012 should be an even better year for Girlfriends Films.”

XCritic.com contributor Rob Perez adds, “It doesn’t surprise me at all that this small niche studio has become a powerful force in adult.  Girlfriends Films has defined girl / girl porn by producing films that are story and character driven, combined with beautiful women and hot, titillating, erotic lesbian sex, better than any other studio I know of.  Quality, quality, quality outweighs all else and Girlfriends Films has accomplished this since day one.  I’ve been a fan for nearly that long and look forward to more great product from Girlfriends Films in the years to come.”

Girlfriends Films owner Dan O’Connell says, “This award comes almost ten years to the day – January 6, 2002 – that Girlfriends Films opened for business.  Since the very beginning we’ve always put our best foot forward when it comes to representing the industry and helping form its public image.  So this is an especially timely and wonderful reward for ten years of putting in honest work and producing good products.”

“We have worked hard and smart in regard to spreading our content over all outlets,” continues O’Connell.  “Girlfriends Films movies are available on DVD, in stores, our membership site, VOD, and cable, and we remain vigilant in attacking piracy.  From the standpoint of strategy, this is one of the most difficult parts of our business.  Stores and distributors gave us our start, and it’s important that we continue to give them an abundance of fresh product that has never been released on other platforms.  We keep a six-month waiting period from the time a DVD gets released until it appears on VOD or cable.”

O’Connell continues, “We look at the adult business as if it is almost a public service.  All of us in the adult industry are providing products that help satisfy a variety of sexual interests and desires that often aren’t satiated in other ways.  As laughter is often called the ‘best medicine,’ orgasms and sexual contentment are also important to a person’s well being.  Our thanks goes to XCritic for recognizing us.  We are looking forward to 2012 and have plans to make Girlfriends Films an even better studio, in all respects!”

“Thank you so much to Chris Thorne and his amazing staff of reviewers,” adds Girlfriends Films Vice President Moose.  “XCritic.com has always had a great feel for what consumers want out of their adult movies, so being named Studio of the Year is a huge honor.”

2011 was an amazing year for Girlfriends Films, which included record sales, two new and acclaimed series, notable industry accolades, the release of its 300th title, two distribution deals, the launch of its first membership site plus a foray into publishing.

Girlfriends Films recently published its first book – Lesbian Sex Positions – and will immediately embark on a full year of promotions, which extend beyond traditional markets.  The success of its 2012 wall calendar has Girlfriends Films designing 2 collectable calendars for 2013.

Additional exciting plans for the new year include original, new series, more episodes of the acclaimed GFFMembers.com talk shows “The Vault” and “The Kinky & Creepy Show,” the launch of a lucrative affiliate program, distribution of additional producers (based on the success of movies by Juicy Pink Box & Tammy Sands), a second membership website, and development of a novelty patent.

In 2012, Girlfriends Films will continue its renowned monthly charity program, as well as working side by side with the Free Speech Coalition to protect the industry’s rights. 2011 saw Girlfriends Films rise to become one of the elite adult studios.  In 2012, Girlfriends Films will continue its lead by example, operating under the direction of Dan O’Connell, with both ethics and passion.

Fleshlight (www.Fleshlight.com), the world’s number one selling male sex toy company, comes to Los Angeles in a big way to start 2012!

Fleshlight, as well as the company’s affiliate program FN Cash, will be all over XBIZ Los Angeles. Fleshlight is the Corporate Sponsor of XBIZ LA, the official sponsor of the 2012 XBIZ Awards After Party, and the Platinum Sponsor of XBIZ Retail.

From January 9th through January 12th Fleshlight will host an Executive Private Meeting Room at XBIZ LA which takes place at the Sofitel Hotel in Los Angeles. FNCash is one of the Corporate Sponsors for the event. Fleshlight is a Platinum Sponsor and premier exhibitor at XBIZ Retail 2012 which takes place January 9th and 10th at the Burbank Marriott Hotel in Burbank, California.

FNCash will be sponsoring the shuttles taking hotel guests between XBIZ LA and XBIZ Retail to The Barker Hangar for the 10th annual XBIZ Awards, as well as to The Wilshire which will host the Official XBIZ Awards After Party, sponsored by Fleshlight.

Fleshlight’s Chief Operating Officer Brian Shubin will be a panelist for the Online Retail Session, which will be held on Tuesday, January 10th at 9:00am. The panel will be moderated by Jeff Dillon from Gamelink.com. And to finish off the week, all attendees will enjoy Mimosas in the executive private meeting room the morning after the awards ceremony.

“We are excited, as always, to be taking part in another XBIZ trade show,” says Brian Shubin. “We are particularly excited about the upcoming show, it sounds like all the right people with be in attendance and we are expecting a very successful show. Not to mention, we will be showing a sneak peak at our amazing new product.”

Fleshlight is nominated for the following awards:

FN Cash – “Retail Affiliate Program of the Year”
Fleshlight.com – “Retail Site of the Year”
Fleshlight – “Sex Toy Company of the Year”
Fleshlight Blade – “Non-Powered Pleasure Product of the Year”
Fleshlight Girls – “Lisa Ann – Adult Star Branded Pleasure Product of the Year”
Fleshlight Freaks! – “Alternative Pleasure Product of the Year”
Fleshlight “Over 4 Million Sold” – “Marketing Campaign of the Year”

For more information, visit Fleshlight.com

Fleshlight (www.Fleshlight.com), the world’s number one selling male sex toy company, and Fleshlight Girl and Adult Film Star Lisa Ann have chosen the lucky fan that will win a date with the starlet to the 2012 AVN Awards, held in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Lisa Ann will go live at Fleshlight.com/datelisaann to announce the winner at 4:00PM CT on Friday, January 6th.

“The Date Lisa Ann contest was an enormous success,” says Orlando Rios, Social Media Director for Fleshlight. “With over 500 hundred order entries and national television exposure on TMZ, this is one of our best social marketing campaigns we have ever done.  On Friday, Lisa Ann will go live via webcam to draw the lucky winner. Lisa’s excited, we are excited, and I am pretty sure the winner will be too.”

Here’s how the contest worked out!  Everyone who bought a Lisa Ann Fleshlight in the month of December from http://fleshlight.com/datelisaann was entered into the contest.  The lucky winner will be flown to Las Vegas, NV to accompany Lisa Ann to the 2012 AVN Awards. The winner will also receive passes to the 2012 AVN Adult Entertainment Expo.  Fans can also win a Lisa Ann Fleshlight by tweeting hash tag #datelisaann on Twitter. Go to fleshlight.com/datelisaann for official rules. To keep up to date with the latest Fleshlight contests, follow @Fleshlight on twitter.

The 29th annual AVN Awards Show will be held on Saturday, January 21, 2012 at The Joint at The Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Las Vegas. The annual AVN Awards Show is the premier gala of adult video and recognizes titles, individuals, and companies for contributions to and excellence in the industry. One of the largest adult trade shows in the world, The AVN Adult Entertainment Expo brings together an exciting and unique experience for everyone within the adult entertainment industry. The lucky winner will gain access to the AEE Fan Fest, giving fans never-before-seen access to the industry and its participants.

XBIZ

O’Connell will receive the honor on stage this Tuesday night, Jan. 10 at the 10th annual XBIZ Awards Show at Barker Hangar in Santa Monica. O’Connell is accepting the honor as his production company celebrates its own 10th anniversary this month as one of the top lesbian studios in adult entertainment today.

The humble president enters the year with the momentum of an eventful 2011 in which Girlfriends Films released its 300th original title, launched its first official membership site, published its first book and enjoyed record sales.

But while O’Connell remains hands-on in driving the creative side of Girlfriends Films, he also devotes a remarkable amount of time and effort to industry activism and charitable causes.

Girlfriends Films reformatted its already robust charity program in 2011 to include monthly donations to various organizations on behalf of performers and industry members. The move to monthly contributions allowed for more performers and charities to be involved.

“I have always admired Dan for the way that he has built up Girlfriend Films to be a prominent adult studio and certainly one of the leaders, if not the leader, for lesbian adult studios,” said Hustler president Michael Klein. “But beyond that Dan is always on the forefront in getting involved in causes that are important to the industry and ready to battle to protect the interests of the adult community.

“And I also have tremendous respect for the work that Dan does through Girlfriend Films and on his own to support numerous charitable organizations with constant donations each year. Clearly, he is a worthwhile recipient of the ‘Man of the Year’ award.”

Paul Fishbein, the founder of AVN Media Network, echoed Klein’s sentiments.

“Dan O’Connell is one of those rare successful people who gives back to the community and cares about the world at large,” Fishbein told XBIZ. “The fact that he actually has an outreach program to various charities he cares about makes him a very unique individual in the adult community.”

The 2012 XBIZ “Woman of the Year,” Diane Duke, agreed. Duke, the executive director of the Free Speech Coalition, pointed to O’Connell’s passionate efforts to help the industry overcome the biggest challenges it faces today.

“Dan is a brilliant businessman. But what makes Dan so extraordinary is his knowledge about, and work on, the issues that impact the adult entertainment industry,” Duke said. “Dan not only makes sure he stays informed about issues, but also rolls up his sleeves and gets involved.

“Whether attending and speaking at a Cal-OSHA meeting or protesting against .XXX, I can always count on Dan to be on the front line of fighting for the rights of the people in our industry.”

Duke continued, “Finally, Dan is a great philanthropist. He has been successful in business and seems to go above and beyond to give back to the community. Excellent choice XBIZ, I can’t think of a more deserving person for the award.”

Alec Helmy, president and founder of XBIZ, said, “Dan O’Connell possesses that rare combination of humility, strength and vision.

“In addition to running a growing enterprise built on ethics and integrity, Dan has shown great selflessness through his charitable endeavors and unwavering commitment to improving the well-being of the industry at large. He embodies the very spirit of our ‘Man of the Year,’ and we are very pleased to honor Dan with this award.”

O’Connell discussed the “Man of the Year” honor, his inspiration and his motivation in this exclusive interview:

XBIZ: What does the “Man of the Year” award mean to you?

DO: When Girlfriends Films won the FSC Leadership Award in 2010, we found ourselves suddenly getting even more involved because we wanted to set an even better example. I wouldn’t have anticipated such an effect. I’m sure that this award will do the same. It is the biggest award I will ever receive. It’s great to get such attention, especially when it comes attached to being a positive role model. But at the moment I am just feeling flattered and elated beyond words.

What compels you to try to affect positive change within our industry?

We’ve all heard of the old adage that laughter is the best medicine. You can add orgasms to laughter as benefitting the soul and body. Pornography serves a very useful purpose for a lot of people, including those without partners as well as couples whose relationship excitement has waned or are looking for the best possible sex life. With an improved public image, there would be a lot more pornography consumption, which would benefit not just the public but also the adult industry in terms of greater profits, which would lead to better products. After all, there are more sex fans than there are NFL fans or NASCAR fans. But we continue to be an industry whose sales continue to be repressed by poor public image. It’s quite an uphill battle and I will probably never see porn gain the kind of mainstream acceptance we deserve, but building a positive public image for pornography plays an important consideration in everything Girlfriends Films does. This includes our products, marketing, and especially how we treat folks we deal with. This is probably the last industry to be so affected by outdated ideology that goes back to the Dark Ages. Oddly, the industry has shown very little attention to correcting these perceptions.

What has inspired your strong commitment to charitable causes through Girlfriends Films?

My older sister is a retired teacher and — even on her limited income — makes significant contributions to good causes. She’s set a great example. I had a brother and sister die from cancer, and their deaths showed me how badly we need to fund research for curing that disease.  I’ve visited poor countries and seen how bad living conditions can be. Because they are the ones who support us, I like to steer money to charities that will ultimately benefit our customers. Our performers tend to favor animal-related causes. In addition, I always make sure we give to Cancer Research Institute, The Conservation Fund, Fallen Heroes Fund, Boys and Girls Clubs, and Compassion & Choices. A few months ago we gave $1,000 to a mid-size charity that focuses on helping young girls get ahead. They sent the money back to us because of the industry we are in. How sad is that!

I want to mention that we are giving the Free Speech Coalition extra funding each month because the adult video industry is in danger of being legislated out of existence.People either don’t know or just don’t seem to care about such things as the Cal/OSHA proposals and the huge threat they pose to businesses, not to mention our national freedoms. Any other industry faced with such threats would have already circled their wagons.

What have you learned about giving back to the community?

I’m very impressed with the quality of people I’ve met through service work. In our industry, Free Speech Coalition continues to amaze me with what they are able to do with minimal resources. I always think that Diane Duke could successfully lead just about any company.

What’s the most rewarding part of running Girlfriends Films?

We have a multi-faceted business and each day brings lots of challenges and frustrations.  However, each day I’m reminded numerous times how fortunate I am. I own a movie studio. I get to make movies and hang out with a lot of fun girls. I make a good living at something countless people would pay to experience. I’m not a religious person but, given the number of people who would pay dearly to be in my shoes, I feel almost as though I’ve been anointed by a higher power to do this. It just doesn’t make sense. But I’ll take it.

It’s been lots of fun to lead the lesbian video genre for the past 10 years. Staying ahead means producing a great product, giving great service and continually refining our marketing strategy.  It’s like a board game but better.

Also, there is also something to be said about growing Girlfriends Films from a part-time business to the point where we have a group of employees who can take on the jobs I either dislike or do poorly, such as electronics and accounting. In our case, we have a great, well-rounded group that gets along well together and — as I like to say — could probably take control and improve nearly any of the companies in the business park where we are located. I don’t know how I could amass such a fine group of friends if it weren’t for bringing them together through work. I get a big kick out of working with them and seeing them flourish. We’ve never had anyone quit or retire from Girlfriends Films. I’m very thankful for being a part of this.

Watch the making of the Rocky XXX music on YouTube Video www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8Omi2YNTLU

Truth be told, the only adult movie award that Will Ryder still yearns to win is that for best music soundtrack and this year the versatile adult movie director/producer has a chance of taking home the trophy with his marvelous set of music for the Adam & Eve/ X-Play parody of Sylvester Stallone’s fight classic Rocky. Known mostly for his funny television show parodies and numerous young girl lines, Ryder bit off a bit more than he should have chewed in writing, arranging, producing, playing and recording a set of 11 musical compositions for Rocky XXX that are mostly classical in nature.

There are no guarantees in life or in porn but the hundreds of hours that went into creating what is one of the most complex and beautiful non-library musical scores ever featured in an adult movie will not have gone in vein if he comes up empty at the AVN Award Show in Las Vegas later this month.

“I’m as proud of this musical score as I am for anything I’ve ever done in this industry so win or lose I can look back with satisfaction at a job well-done but there is nothing like winning in Las Vegas and this would be huge,” Ryder remarked.

Now viewers can get an inside look at how those recording sessions took place. The enjoyable video is available for free on YouTube www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8Omi2YNTLU

What Ryder did was spend weeks studying Bill Conti’s Rocky score before going into the recording studio for 13 days where he arranged, composed, altered and arranged what is long considered a masterpiece in American cinema. Brass instrument parts including trumpet, trombone, coronet, flugel horn and tuba had to be written, played and recorded. String arrangements had to be created, played and accurately voiced on synthesizers and rhythm tracks had to be assembled including period appropriate guitars, bass guitars and percussion plus vocals involving top Hollywood session singers had to be sung all with his musical partner Rock Hardson in the control room.

What made him go to these lengths for porn music?

“I really don’t know I guess I might be crazy but I actually believe that even porn deserves the respect of excellent music.”

Winning dozens of award trophies including AVN “Director of the Year” has created a lasting reputation but with a long history in the music business before entering the wonderful world of porn, Ryder still dreams of standing in this elusive winner’s circle.

More: continued here